Why Remote Proctoring is a Game-Changer: The Future of Drug Testing for Healthcare and the Modern Workforce

Since the pandemic, increased telehealth use has led to greater interest in remote drug testing. Drug testing has been an essential aspect of healthcare for supporting individuals, including monitoring substance use disorders, treatments, and pre-employment screenings. The adoption of telehealth breaks down barriers that prevent individuals from seeking treatment, revolutionizing healthcare, making it more cost-efficient, and responding to consumer shifts for convenience, eliminating the stress of in-person visits. 
Drug testing is widely used for substance assessment and plays an essential role in ensuring compliance and safety. It is commonly conducted for employment, recovery, or personal health and wellness. Since its inception, drug testing continues to evolve, driven by shifting substance use trends, public health needs, and advancements in technology, to provide the growing need for responsive and effective testing solutions.

Treatment and behavioral health care: The increasing opioid crisis, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, sparked technological innovations to overcome many barriers in care. Advances for substance use disorder (SUD) treatment such as telehealth, remote monitoring, and digital health interventions are becoming more acceptable and effective approaches for supporting individuals with SUD. These digital tools enhance accessibility and offer potential to reduce health disparities in SUD care. Patient satisfaction suggests that technology-based interventions can be accepted and even preferred. Telehealth for opioid use disorder has shown an increase in patient satisfaction and therapeutic alliance, improve access to treatment and utilization, reduce health care costs, and achieve retention rates comparable to conventional in-person care.¹ Technology-based treatments not only complement in-person care but also have the potential to access individuals who are unreachable or uninterested in traditional treatment settings. There is a significant gap between treatment need and treatment reach. In 2020, of the 40 million Americans with an SUD in the United States, only 6.5% received any SUD treatment.¹ Telehealth offers a promising solution for improving convenience and access to treatment.

Employment management: With the surge in remote work, while flexibility and convenience have improved, it introduces challenges in monitoring employees. For those in remote or rural areas, accessing a collection facility often means traveling long distances, which adds time and expenses. Field-based workers also face similar disruptions, often needing to travel to clinics while away from a physical office location, interrupting job duties and reducing productivity. Traditionally, lab-based testing is commonly conducted in workplace settings but, this method of drug testing can be time-consuming with long turn-around times, delays, and inefficiencies due to manual chain of custody data entry.

Testing in the comfort of home offers comfort and convenience, making the process more user centered, whether for regular testing or for pre-employment screening. Typically, testing is done in two steps: the participant takes the test and if the test produces a positive result, the sample is sent to a laboratory for confirmation testing. These tests are qualitative and can quickly detect the presence of a specific drug. Rapid drug tests are ideal for identifying substance use quickly, produces results in minutes, is cost-effective, and convenient for on-site use. Many drug testing options on the market, including our multi-drug tests for urine or saliva samples, are designed to detect multiple drugs and cut-off levels simultaneously, enhancing efficiency.

Saliva tests, also known as a mouth swab test or an oral fluid test, offers a simple and easy to administer solution for drug screening. Saliva collection can detect recent drug use and is a less intrusive test format than other sample collections. This drug test format is ideal for monitoring patients under medical care, pre-employment screenings, law enforcement officials for roadside checks, and in other situations where drug use is suspected.

Benefits:

• Sample collection can be directly observed reducing the chance of adulteration.
• Suitable for on-site testing and does not require a bathroom or private settings.
• Up to 24-hour detection window* after recent drug use. *Parameter dependent. Contact us for details.
• Quicker results in just a few minutes.
• Analyzes a saliva sample for drugs and their metabolites.
• Uses an absorbent collection swab that is placed in the mouth and the saliva collected is screened for drugs.

Modern innovations like remote proctoring are transforming the drug screening process. These tools streamline workflows, enables same-day results, and facilitates faster decision-making. Remote proctoring eliminates the need for in-person visits and improves accessibility. This solution minimizes delays, costs, and administrative burdens. Today’s fast-paced environments rely on solutions that is scalable and provides speed. AI-powered technologies replace slow, manual processes with faster, smarter workflows.

Benefits:

• Improved accuracy, speed, and efficiency.
• Remote scheduling, monitoring, and documentation of participants’ drug tests.
• Reduce travel and wait times.
• Convenient, private at-home testing.
• Accessible digital experience, virtually meet from anywhere with Wi-Fi connectivity on desktop and mobile devices.
• Schedule appointments at a time that works for you.
• Testing process is guided, observed, and results are confirmed by a proctor, ensuring proper testing and confidence in results.
• Easy-to-use web application to order, conduct screening, and review results.
• Internal data management system integrations and electronic chain of custody capabilities for streamlined record-keeping.

We are happy to offer remote proctoring with our Rapid Response Multi-Drug Saliva Drug Test Cups! Individuals can now book an appointment with us to administer a saliva screen anywhere they are, any time, in the privacy and comfort of their own home.

How does it work:

1. You place a proctoring order for the participant. 
2. We ship our Saliva Drug Test Cup directly to the participant.
3. The participant confirms receipt of our test kit package via email link (we send with the initial order).
4. The participant books an appointment and schedules a meeting time with a proctor via email link.
5. The participant opens the video link, via email, and joins the meeting with the proctor on the scheduled test date.
6. During the testing process, the participant uploads a photo of their piece of ID and their tamper-proof test kit package.
7. The participant signs via on their touchscreen device and provides an electronic signature to the proctor.
8. The participant performs testing process and submits test result image(s). 
9. The proctor reviews and approves the test results.
10. A chain of custody form is generated, and the proctor sends the data to you or is uploaded to your internal data management system.

Watch our demo video

Streamline your drug screening process with our RapidRemote Proctoring service today. Contact us to get started.

Using urine cups? Ask about our RapidReader App!

Our innovative screening software uploads test results to your database in seconds. Designed to automate inventory management and streamline workflow to maximize efficiency.

Learn more about the RapidReader App here. See the app in action. Watch the RapidReader demo video here.

Citation: 1. Sweeney MM, Holtyn AF, Stitzer ML, Gastfriend DR. Practical Technology for Expanding and Improving Substance Use Disorder Treatment: Telehealth, Remote Monitoring, and Digital Health Interventions. Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2022 Sep;45(3):515-528. doi: 10.1016/j.psc.2022.05.006. Epub 2022 Jul 31. PMID: 36055736; PMCID: PMC9352538.